False Facts About Ozzy Osbourne You Always Thought Were True

Ozzy Osbourne has been rock's dark prince for 50 years now. Providing menacing vocals for Black Sabbath and his own solo work, Osbourne is the voice of heavy metal, a status earned by belting and shrieking his way through such headbanging classics as "Iron Man," "Paranoid," "Shot in the Dark," and "Mama, I'm Coming Home." Plus, Osbourne enjoyed an unlikely comeback in the 2000s as the star of MTV's The Osbournes, a comic reality show about the metal legend and his wacky family.

But despite all that, Ozzy Osbourne, a legendary libertine and partier, might be better known for all of the stories about him. Some have reached mythological proportions, which makes a fan wonder ... are all those epic stories about Ozzy actually true? Osbourne has lived a life so unbelievable and over-the-top that many bonkers stories about him are indeed real. But a lot of common knowledge out there about the man is just plain wrong. From his very name to his incidents with live animals, here are the false facts about Ozzy Osbourne that you always thought were true.

Ozzy Osbourne was the premiere heavy metal act in two separate decades, albeit in two different incarnations. As frontman of Black Sabbath, he helped invent and popularize dark and heavy rock in the '70s, with his wailing, menacing vocals on songs like "Paranoid" and "War Pigs." In the '80s, Osbourne went solo, adopting a radio-friendly pop sheen (but losing none of his edge) on "Crazy Train" and "Bark at the Moon." 

However, his leaving Black Sabbath for a solo career wasn't the usual story of a lead singer ditching their band to go it alone and find fame and fortune, like George Michael of Wham! or Peter Gabriel of Genesis, for example. Instead, Osbourne's solo gambit was born out of necessity, as the rest of Black Sabbath fired him in 1979. According to the BBC, Osbourne's bandmates grew fed up with his wild, alcohol-and-drug related behavior, along with his tendency to not show up for recording sessions. At the very end of the '70s, and after about a decade as a foursome, guitarist Tony Iommi proposed kicking Osbourne out of the band. Out was Ozzy, and in came Ronnie James Dio.

One just doesn't "mess with Texas" as the saying goes, which includes respecting the state and former independent nation's sacred historical sites. For example, the Alamo, which sits in San Antonio, is a former mission and the site of a pivotal and deadly 1836 battle in the Texas Revolution. So it would be incredibly rude, to say the least, to relieve oneself on the walls of the building. And yet, a story persists that in February 1982, during a visit to the Alamo, Ozzy Osbourne did just that. 

However, while Osbourne did stop by the Texas landmark in early 1982, he didn't urinate on the Alamo itself. He emptied his bladder upon the Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot-tall statue built in 1939 in memory of the 189 Texan freedom fighters who died in 1836. Osbourne was arrested for intoxication and public urination, and he was released on $40 bond. Had he urinated on the actual Alamo, Osbourne would've faced a more severe punishment. "If he had, the police wouldn't have arrested him," an Alamo guide told the Boston Herald (via Blabbermouth). "They would have beaten him to within an inch of his life.

The Dirt is probably the most salacious, eye-popping rock 'n' roll memoir of all time because it's about Motley Crüe, one of the most openly and proudly debauched bands to ever play. One of the most memorable scenes in the book (co-written by every member of the band) and the 2019 film adaptation is the one in 1980-something, where members of the Crüe hang out poolside at a hotel with tour mate Ozzy Osbourne. As it plays out in the film, Osbourne (portrayed by Tony Cavalero) gives a rambling talk about the pitfalls of drugs and life on the road ... then falls to his knees, and with the aid of a straw, snorts a line of live ants "with a single, monstrous snort," as described in The Dirt (via Vanity Fair). 

But did it all actually go down that way? According to Motley Crüe member Nikki Sixx, it did, while Osbourne says he has "absolutely no recollection of doing that." However, Osbourne's guitarist at the time, Jake E. Lee, says he was present on that fated day, and he told Tone-Talk that Osbourne absolutely did not inhale ants — he actually snorted a spider.

The Osbournes was a smash hit for MTV. Debuting in 2002, when the concept of reality TV was still fresh and fascinating, audiences were captivated by the idea of seeing the supposedly wicked and strange Ozzy Osbourne living an idyllic sitcom life in a brightly lit Los Angeles mansion, bickering with his kids, and trying not to step in dog crap. However, like a lot of reality shows, The Osbournes wasn't 100 percent real but instead laced with moments and situations staged by producers. 

Two moments in particular were completely made up. First, there's an episode where a family meeting turns into a fight, and then there's the scene when the family summons a dog therapist to the home. "The most fake thing about that show was the family meeting, because that was an MTV idea," costar Kelly Osbourne told ABC (via The Independent). "The dog and the dog therapist, that was an MTV thing," she added. However, Ozzy Osbourne's publicist responded to Kelly's claims, saying, "Nothing is ever scripted or planned on The Osbournes." But if we're picking sides here, we're siding with Kelly.

You're not a real rock star until a few salacious stories about you become "common knowledge." Of course, most of these wind up being totally exaggerated or complete nonsense. However, Ozzy Osbourne has lived such an extreme rock n' roll life that some of the especially outlandish stories — the ones that seem too weird or over-the-top to actually be true — really did happen. For example, the one about how Osbourne once committed the very bloody (but also very metal) act of biting the heads off of a pair of doves? He did that.

In the run-up to the American release of his first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, Osbourne attended a sales convention for his label, Epic Records. According to Mick Wall's Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe (via Ultimate Classic Rock), Osbourne was supposed to give a short speech, thanking the company for all of its promotional efforts. He was then set to end his spiel with a dramatic act: releasing three white doves into the audience of industry professionals. But Osbourne, who'd downed a bottle of brandy on the way to the convention, didn't do that. "I just remember this PR woman going on and on at me," Osbourne told Wall. "In the end, I said, 'Do you like animals?' Then I pulled out one of these doves and fit its f***ing head off. Just to shut her up."